The World Next Door is a wonderfully unique, narrative-drive matching game that puts you in the place of Jun, a real human girl, in a world of mythical creatures.

Jun has just entered this world as a normal human, now finding herself surrounded by teenage magical creatures. These creatures have a lot to teach and show this newbie, and in the demo I played, we were thrust straight into the action.

Exploring an ancient shrine, you are able to talk to, and interact with, various creatures. Your replies come in three options, each with a face to show the type of attitude you’d be having with that reply. These different teenagers act a lot like real teenagers – moody, showing off, and full of fire – so take care with your attitude.

You, however, are there to learn magic and spells. Being a human, it is not expected that you’ll be good, but learning magic isn’t a very challenging task. You see, the floor of the dungeon becomes full of different symbols. If these symbols are in groupings of three or more, you can stand on them and cast a spell. Each different symbol creates a different spell, so you can try to activate the symbols you need to create the spell you want. You are also able to pick up a single symbol and move it, placing it elsewhere on the grid.

This seems very easy, but when fighting two or more enemies on ground with dead ends, you will find yourself running around to dodge attacks while trying to find matching tiles to cast your own spells back. You’ll need to be quick and find matches easily if you are to make it out alive.

The World Next Door not only has some pretty interesting story and gameplay, but the visual style for the game is very well done. The entire game is very nicely made so far, and I look forward to the full release next year.

The World Next Door is coming out in Early 2019 on PC, Mac, and Nintendo Switch. You can find more information, as well as a newsletter sign up, on the developer’s website or wishlist the game on Steam.

Jupiter is a prolific indie game journalist, writing for Metro UK, Big Boss Battle, AlphaBetaGamer, and many more, all with a focus on smaller indie gems. She covers thousands of game jams and indie games on her YouTube channel, letting every game have a moment in the spotlight. She runs indiegamejams.com, a calendar of all of the game jams going on in the world, judges many jams and events. Jupiter is also the Adept Games Wizard at Armor Games where she finds free-to-play, browser-based games to bring on board to their web portal.